The purpose-built apartment building is significant to the historic context of the District of Columbia for its role in providing a new and significant type of housing to residents of the Nation's Capital.

Specifically, within the general context of "The Apartment Building in the District of Columbia, 1870-1945," this property type defines the apartment building in its seminal period in the District of Columbia.

These buildings introduced new residential organization and dictated new approaches to day-to-day living. The Phase I and Phase II Apartment Building Survey studied over four-thousand apartment buildings, determining three-thousand to meet the definition of a purpose-built apartment building.

EHT Traceries brought the two phases of the Apartment Building Survey to a close with the preparation of Multiple Property Documentation, "The Apartment Building in the District of Columbia, 1870-1945."

As a result of defining the property type, establishing evaluation criteria, and determining standards of integrity (adopted by the District of Columbia Historic Preservation Review Board), fifteen apartment buildings were listed on the National Register. EHT Traceries prepared the District of Columbia Landmark and National Register Nominations for the following apartment buildings: Wyoming, Harrison, Cairo, Myrene, Lafayette, Roosevelt, Augusta, Gladstone, Hawarden, Champlain, Kennedy-Warren, Ponce de Leon, Warner, and Hampshire Gardens. All were listed in 1994.